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Four out of Five stars
Running time: 110 mins

Opens London Film Festival: 20th October

Lars von Trier must be mellowing in his old age – this is a delightful farce with a frequently hilarious script strong comic performances.

What's it all about?
Peter Gantzler plays Ravn, the beleaguered owner of an IT company who decides it's time to sell up. There's only one problem: when he started the company, he created a non-existent boss (to hide behind when unpopular decisions had to be made) and now the humourless Icelandic buyer, Finnur (Fridrik Thor Fridriksson) wants to deal with the boss of it all in person.

In desperation, Ravn hires the dopey Kristoffer (Jens Albinus), a failed actor, to pretend to be the boss throughout the negotiations. However, Kristoffer really throws himself into the role, forging complicated relationships with the loyal staff and questioning his character's motivation at every turn.

The Good
Von Trier's blackly comic script is frequently laugh out loud funny and there are lots of jokes at the expense of pretentious or overly neurotic actors, as well as some subtle digs at IT companies and incomprehensible jargon.

Albinus is both hilarious and infuriating as Kristoffer, particularly when inserting his own dramatic pauses. There's also strong support from Iben Hjejle (as a loyal staff member) and from Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, whose anti-Danish rants are a comic highlight.

The Bad
Of course, this wouldn't be a Lars von Trier film without a spot of perversity or two and he duly uses a couple of directorial tricks that don't quite work. In the first, he appears as an omniscient narrator, occasionally interrupting to draw attention to the fact that this is only a film.

The second is more interesting and certainly distinctive, but doesn't really add anything. He uses an automatic randomised camera (in a process called Automavision), which throws up occasionally weird angles and shots in which the actors' heads are at the bottom of the frame.

Worth seeing?
This is hilarious from start to finish, even if the directorial tricks don't quite pay off. Recommended.